PdC - a way to avoid tax referendums

The city understands that the way to avoid asking taxpayers to fund unpopular projects is to use PdC. The result is that questionable projects are taxpayer funded without submission to a citizens vote.

The taxpayer funds are urban renewal dollars where too often projects of city wide importance are often borne by a small segment of Portland.

There is something easy in looking to PdC to fund projects even if they could not possibly come within the concept of "elimination of blight." The Douglas School District is an example.

See too the a recent article in the Week where PdC is considering using convention center dollars to fund the proposed baseball park Thus, down goes the Coliseum.

But this seems to fly in the face of Mayor Adams' determination to find funding for the convention center hotel project.

Now there will have to be some shuffling of dollars because part of the baseball deal is to renovate PGE Park for the Beavers. This area does not lie in an urban renewal district.

Of course, all one has to do is redraw a boundary or ignore it altogether. But the goal is always avoid a citizens' vote.

Of PdC justification for projects like these is jobs. See the Tribune's article on the post office deal; another PdC use of urban renewal dollars for dubious reasons.

It is interesting to see to a new word in the PdC lingo - "transformational." I guess it is the replacement for "catalytic."

". . . the property [post office] is worth it to the PDC because "this is a transformational site for the city of Portland. If we don't do it now, we're going to want to do it some other time." ". . . the site could accommodate as many as 10,000 new jobs in the future."

Now that is a rationale.

Worth it to PDC? That is a sign that PdC forgets whose money it is and who they work for - us. PdC - is like the spoiled rich kid who spends the trust money without any restrictions.

I wonder if citizens were able to vote on it - would it be worth it to them? 10,000 new jobs? Please? Don't you just wonder where these 'visionaries' get these numbers?

The post office property has been in the eyes of the River District URA since the beginning of the district. Frankly, they have the bonding capacity to purchase the land, but those dollars are also dollars diverted from city general fund and the county for needed services.

A lot of zero and low income services suffer because of a lack of dollars that could be forthcoming if the urban renewal slush fund ceased to exist.

Right now, according to the Tribune, the Post Office has 800 employees at the site. This is a round the clock operation. It is 13 acres and it is obvious too that there is much space devoted to machinery and for loading and unloading trucks, etc.

But 10,000 jobs? The population of Old Town - over 60 acres - is 2,000 (2000 Census Track).

But 'jobs' is the term that is too often used as a justification for projects without the slightest analysis of the validity.

A more real time consideration: just how many Portlanders (not in the metro sense) work at the post office? How many from Old Town or Pearl? How many worker's dollars are spent locally?

While there is a financial crisis that is likely to get worse before it gets better - it provides an opportunity to restructure the development process in Portland.

Ending all of the urban renewal districts ought to be the first priority. Next should be a economic plan to not only build our way out of the recession, but build our way into the future. An equitable future for Portland.

There is no rational reason to maintain PdC as a government entity that operates to the detriment of Portland and serves only to continue to build its bureaucratic structure on false premises and promises.